


Odyssey

by KiriJones



Series: Ceremonials [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Majour AUS, Post Hobbit, fem!Bilbo, post LOTR
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5569630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiriJones/pseuds/KiriJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a series of oneshots set in the Ceremonials universe. </p><p>I: After the One Ring is destroyed Frodo Baggins asks a question of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. The answer comes with almost seventy years worth of pain, loss, and choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odyssey

Years after the fact when the Ring is destroyed and his heart is broken and the hand on his hand burnt off by the fire of Mount Doom Frodo will be sitting before the hearth fire in Bag End feeling the misery and pain and anger and longing and look at the elder Hobbit that sits across from him with a sharpened umbrella at her side that serves as a weapon and a walking stick for her old and weak bones. He will look at his fearsome and headstrong cousin Lobelia, who even in her old age is still a force to be reckoned with among the folks of the Shire.

Lobelia, or Auntie, as she is known to Sam and Rosie’s brood much to her unconcealed horror and hidden delight, is the closet thing to a mother he has left as Billa Baggins is hidden away at Rivendell thoroughly destroyed not only by the loss of the Ring but the death of the man who was not her One or Heartmate but still the love of her life all the same. Since he came back, or rather fled, back to the Shire Lobelia has been his constant companions over for elevensies and they will sit in silence as he mourns for what his weakness cost him in the cracks of Mt, Doom while she mourns the loss of her husband.

On this day Frodo Baggins will break their habit of self imposed silence and it is then he will ask her a question that has long haunted his dreams and has burned its way out of him.

“Was it worth it?” he asks with a shaky voice that suddenly fills the space around them and echoes with pain and loss.

at these words Lobelia freezes and stops her needlepoint and looks at him with those large eyes and she seems to be drowning as her face and eyes light up with sorrow, anger, regret, and the haunting look of what if or could have beens or would have or should have, and then it disappears as a mask molds her features into a grim and calm face with determination carved into the lines that have been carved into it by time and life.

They both know of what he speaks; the events that he discovered on his quest to destroy the one Ring. Some of it was told to him by Gimli, other part by Gandalf, and some even by Legolas himself. The wizard and the elf were both there for parts of the story. And that story has long caused Frodo to ponder fate and destiny and choice. It has caused him to think of the Hobbit whose name he bore and who he lost when he chose the Ring over a possible future. His hand is covered in burns that have healed and rendered the name mute. His hand matches that of Loeblia, which she wears freely. It is strangely bare of a name and has a strange scar on both side of her hand as if it was punctured by a blade of some sort.

Lobelia if anyone will understand the uncertainty that fills his heart. Frodo could pursue his Heartmate, but he knows for a fact the person whose name he bore did not bear his own. It is not that unheard of, some bearing the name of one while the other has the name of another. While it is not look as down upon as not possessing a name at all Frodo is torn between pursuing what could have been and letting go. She knows that he knows. But still they do not speak of it. Some things are better left unsaid and in the past and buried away. But now it not the time for it.

Lobelia looks at Frodo, the boy of her heart and whom she helped to raise, and she knows that she must answer with honesty. And suddenly the weight of almost seventy years of choices she has made and others have made are bearing down on her shoulders. She feels the tears burning in her eyes and the scars on her hand seem to ache and burn. But then she steels her spine and lets her fingers drift to the large iron ring decorated with runes and a single opal on the fourth finger of her left hand ground her.

She was Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and she would not run from who she was or what she had done. So she ignores the pain and sorrow and instead lets the love she felt for her husband and the fondness for the faunt turned fully grown Hobbit in front of her flow through her veins.

Lobelia smiles that rare smile that only Billa and Frodo and her husband saw. And so she replies. “Always.”


End file.
